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Topic: Am I supposed to tip for carry out? (Read 7408 times)

I picked up pizza tonight, and while paying noticed the spot where you can put a tip. I'm thinking this is just how their registers print out all receipts (delivery ir dine-in) and didn't tip. Was that acceptable or was a tip expected?

I've never tipped for carry out, since the waiters and delivery drivers (the people who normally get tipped) don't provide you with any service for carry out. I might tip if someone really went above and beyond, but I can't think of a circumstance for that off the top of my head.

I wondered this for a long time and I hate leaving that space blank even though carryout doesn't usually warrant a tip.

So what I do is, I tip $2.

Here's $2 for having my food ready for me and for doing your job which is not making you any tips. $15 worth of food? You get $2. $50 worth of food? You get $2.

I know I'm starting to sound like the kid from Better Off Dead but bear with me. It's a token that shows I appreciate them. I just call it my "carryout tax". We don't get carryout often enough for it to add but significantly so bonus all around.

I remember previous threads with this question, and some people pointed out how in some cases, someone at the restaurant bags the food correctly, includes all the napkins, utensils, sauces, etc., which I had never thought about before. It depends on the situation, of course, but now when I'm picking something up I think about that.

So, for example, when I pick up a single slice of pizza, and all someone has to do is walk over to the warming shelf and bring it to me (and ring up the transaction), I don't tip. But when I've ordered several things, and I see that some prep work has been done to make it quick and easy for me to carry it out, I usually drop something in the tip jar, even if it's just coins.

At the few local places where we get carry out, we almost always pay in cash, and there's a tip jar on the counter. We toss in a dollar + change, or maybe $2, most of the time, and if we don't have any singles or whatever one time, we round up the next time. It's usually a couple of pizzas or some subs and fries. If it were something a lot more complicated that included little packets of condiments, utensils, salad dressing, etc, we would probably tip more.

2. If it is a take-out only (or mainly) place, like pizza, tip is not necessary. If the people working there do something special for you, it would be nice to add a buck or two.

3. If you are picking up your order but it is a place where the server who put the take-out order together would normally be serving a table and receiving a tip, you should tip. (When I was a server, it took significant time to take and package the order. And the IRS expected me to report a certain percentage of my sales in tips, and the IRS didn't distinguish tables vs take-out.)

4. I know you didn't ask, but delivery? Tip. Even if the restaurant adds a delivery fee, chances are that the driver only gets a small part of it. Drivers generally pay for their own gas and wear and tear on their car, which adds up.

I'm not sure what I think about that. When I worked as a waitress, we were taxed on the food for a carryout the same as if they ordered in. Packing everything up was also a lot more effort than bringing a plate out to someone and refilling their drinks. No tip = I got to effectively pay for taking their order. A $100 order meant it was assumed my tip was $8 and my paycheck would reflect the tax on the $8 that I was assumed to have received. Usually, that was made up for by the end of the day, but not always.

Other places handle carry outs separately or go under the manager's login, so it's not really that much of an impact other than packing up the food. Problem is, I have no way of knowing which case it is for any given place. I tip around 10% for carry out orders for good karma even though I'm not sure it's required, though.

someone at the restaurant bags the food correctly, includes all the napkins, utensils, sauces, etc.,

But every job requires some kind of job duty. When I was a cashier in a drugstore, I had to ring up the sales correctly, be polite and friendly to customers no matter how they treated me, put the items in a bag, etc etc. Nobody tipped me, nor did I expect them to. It was what I was hired to do. And while I realize that in some places, servers get less than minimum wage, that is not the case here and we still have to tip them.

Yes, I tip on take away. I live in a tipping culture, and the people who put together my order take time that could be given to in house tipping patrons. Take away is a convenience for me, and I appreciate the servers that make it possible.

A doughnut shop recently opened nearby, and I stopped there a couple of times on my way to work to buy doughnuts for my group. After a couple of weeks, a tip jar appeared at the counter. It’s a small place with one woman at the counter who puts doughnuts into boxes for you and rings up the charge. I usually tip for takeout – and I guess this is technically takeout – but seriously???

I wasn’t even happy with the service. I’d buy two dozen doughnuts and ask for, say, a mixed selection from the cake doughnut shelf. She wouldn’t do it. She stood there moonfaced unless I picked out every single doughnut.

Logged

It takes two people to play tug of war. If you don't want to play, don't pick up the rope.

The place I get my calzones normally cuts them in 4 peices, but I prefer mine cut only in two peices, so I always make a special request. I check as I pick up the food and if they complied with my request, I tip them.

For me, it depends on the type of restaurant. There's a great pizza place around the corner from me. I always pick up the pizza to save money on having to tip the delivery guy. While the pizza place has a few tables in there, rarely does anyone sit and eat inside--their business is mostly carry out or delivery. There is no waitstaff--if you eat in, the people working the counter will bring your food over to you. Since they mostly work the counter, they are not paid the below-the-minimum wage that servers are. They don't have a tip jar out. So I don't tip.

For mostly eat-in restaurants that offer take-out, it's harder to figure out what to do. Some give the people working carry-out a real wage, some keep them on server wages. How, exactly, is a customer supposed to know this? And I don't think it is fair to the servers. As a customer, my feeling is that carry-out is easier and therefore doesn't need a tip. And I'm getting a little tired of tip jars springing up *everywhere*. So I wouldn't tip take-out from a sit-down restaurant.

Fortunately for the waitstaff at those restaurants, I don't ever order take-out from them, so the issue never arises. But I don't think I'm alone in my thinking that take-out from a sit-down restaurant is easier for the staff than eating in--it wasn't until EHell that I learned differently. I blame the management for not making this clear to the customers.